The North Rose Fire Department Historical Archive
A historic review, archive, and acknowledgement of the volunteers, families, and community who built and sustained the North Rose Fire Department for more than 110 years — from the Hamlet of North Rose, Town of Rose, Wayne County, New York.
- Chartered by NYS
- 1915
- Charter members
- 23
- Chiefs to date
- 30
- Years of service
- 110+
This work began as an informal desire to capture and preserve the history of the North Rose Fire Department. First inquiries did not uncover a flood of information — only a few current or former members remain, and even fewer were available to engage.
Rather than let that wall stop the work, this archive refocused on the people and the community who built and sustained this organization for more than 110 years. It is a beginning, a framework from which the story of the twentieth century — and the journey into the twenty-first — can continue to grow.
"Remember that you are here for your neighbors, not yourself."
How it began
The charter of 1915, the men who signed the roll, the community leaders whose industry made a fire department necessary — and the incorporation fight of 1958.
ReadA century of service
From the 1889 cold storage to Rescue M-11 in 2022 — every milestone the record preserves, arranged era by era.
ReadThirty chiefs
Thirty individuals across thirty-five terms. Carpenters, farmers, garage proprietors, a country doctor — each with a biography.
ReadThe conflagrations
The 1891 Malt House, the 1917 Main Street fire that took half the business district, and the 1983 explosion that emptied the hamlet.
ReadApparatus & alarms
A hand-built chemical cart, the 1924 Buffalo Larrabee, the siren, the Fire Phone, the Plectron monitor, and E911.
ReadThe people
Veterans, commissioners, the women of the department, and first-person narratives from members who answered the siren.
Read
The first motor engine
Seven years after the Main Street fire, the department took delivery of a Buffalo Larrabee chemical and water pumper — 500 gallons a minute. Pictured with it is Robert D. Dickinson, the first fire chief under the charter, a carpenter and garage proprietor who had already built the department's chemical pull cart by hand.
Every piece of apparatus